A Ghaustly Little Tale

I am not a big fan of Dickens. Oh, I know I should be. I have read a good handful of his books and clearly the man was brilliant. The way he can describe a scene down to the minutest detail makes you feel like you are there. The smells, the sounds, the feel is all there. Unfortunately for me that is half of the problem. Dickens spends SO much time creating a scene that I'm already bored of it by the time the set up is made. I know this doesn't bode well for me to criticize one of the English language's greatest writers, but I am being honest.


There is however one exception.


A Christmas Carol. I love it.

Now let me be clear, I am not into the movies, the plays or any adapted version. I love Dicken's Christmas Carol. For as much as I enjoy the story I love the language and description with which it is told. I love that Marley is dead as a doornail, but Dickens doesn't know what is so particularly dead about a doornail, as he would have supposed that a coffin nail would be the deadest piece of ironmongery. I love that Scrooge makes a lame joke to Marley saying, "There is more gravey than grave in you," and Dickens mocks the lameness of it. It is brilliant.

I love all the asides that so tellingly observe human nature that are as relevant today as when it was written. I love that even though it is somewhat of a cheesey moralistic tell, in the actual telling the characters are true and real, while at the same time creating the perfect stereotypes with which we can all relate. So what I see as cheese in the plays and movies, is in the book an uplifting message that the birth of the Savior we celebrate means even the most ornery of us can change.

So while I will probably never get through Great Expectations (and I'm sure more's the shame), I will pick up my old friend once more this year to enjoy.